“Wait!” cried Caroline. “You’ve got it wrong, Taff. Stephen didn’t join them at all. The meeting at the docks opened our eyes, then with the death of poor Clara…we wouldn’t befriend those men if they were the last on earth. They are criminals!”
“Liar! You’re his wedded whore, of course you would defend him. That makes you just as bad. Well, my dear Lady Westleigh, are you prepared to die? Are you?” Taff snarled as he pivoted, cocked his pistol and pointed it straight at Caroline’s head. She swallowed hard then slowly raised trembling hands, palms outward in a show of complete surrender.
A split second later, Stephen pressed the dagger from his sleeve hard against Taff’s neck. “Put your pistol down, Mr. Martin. It will take me less time to sever your spinal cord than for you to pull that trigger.”
A discreet cough sounded and Stephen glanced sideways. Only to see Sir Albert holding a cocked pistol to his mother’s forehead. For a long moment all sets of eyes flicked back and forth. Finally Stephen dropped the knife, trying not to wince as it bounced and clattered on the stone floor.
“What do you want, Taff?”
“I want us all to take a nice stroll outside. Uncle, if you would untie the dowager. Lady Westleigh, I would ask you to remove your pelisse.”
“I’d rather not,” said Caroline. “I’m a trifle chilly at the moment.”
Stephen nearly smiled. Clever wife. “Come on, Taff, if you want to walk, let’s walk.”
“We won’t be walking until the countess removes her pelisse. If I have to ask again, I’ll be removing it from a cooling corpse.”
Her chin lifting, Caroline removed the light garment and threw it onto the floor, the knife hidden in plain sight also clattering as it hit the stone. “There.”
“Excellent. Now we can depart.”
After leaving the cottage they turned right and walked down a rough, graveled path. Sir Albert and his mother in front, Caroline and Taff at the back and him in the middle, both the other men with trained loaded pistols on the women. Soon he could smell the tang of sea air, hear waves beating against uncompromising rock, and his head swam. The cliff top. Taff was taking them to the place where it had started four years ago.
Far too soon, Sir Albert came to a halt. “Here?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Yes,” replied Taff. “I want the three of you to walk right to the edge. Carefully mind, the gravel is slippery for ladies in heels. But look. Take a long, hard look at the drop. How far down it is to the ocean. How sharp and unforgiving the cliff face, not to mention those rocks below. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, no one to save you. How does it feel?”
Stephen fought the urge to react with violence, as the two pistols in his waistband practically gouged holes in the small of his back. But they only had one shot each, and both would have to count. Even though he still had a dagger in each boot, his skill with them was far too erratic to rely on. Really, it was the pistols or nothing. Heart or between the eyes to be sure.
“I’m not…” he began.
“Not in a talkative mood, Westleigh? Perhaps you need a task to occupy yourself. Uncle. The rope?”
Ice slithered down Stephen’s spine as Sir Albert removed two lengths of rope from around his shoulder. What the fuck was this?
“Don’t look like that, Westleigh,” chuckled the baronet. “It’s not a hard task, even for a Londoner. Two lengths of rope, one for each lady. Tie one end around their waist and leave the other end free.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snarled. “No.”
Taff blinked. “If you won’t, we’ll have to put a bullet in both pretty blonde heads right now. But if that’s your decision, it will make this faster. Not nearly as satisfying, but faster. Uncle, on three. One…two…”
“Wait,” Stephen roared, the word torn from somewhere deep in the abyss forming within his stomach. “I’ll do it.”
“Good decision,” said Sir Albert, handing him the rope.
He walked over to his mother.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” he breathed, hoping she knew he meant for everything. Their fight, his stupidity, all the days he hadn’t been there for her. Hell, all the occasions he’d screwed up, even the ones he couldn’t remember.
Jane lifted her arms in the air. “Make sure you tie it n-nice and tight, my darling. A decent sailor’s knot if you p-please.”
“For me too,” added Caroline, stalking over to stand next to Jane.
God, but they were incredible, his mother and his wife. Not two peas from the same cursed pod, but the same infinitely blessed one.
Swiftly he tied the rope around each of their waists, tugging on the end to ensure the knot wouldn’t slip loose. Every instinct he had screamed it was important the knot hold under very heavy pressure, although he was careful when attending to Caroline that he didn’t restrict access to any of her hidden knives.
“There,” he said frigidly. “Done.”
“All right,” said Taff, gesturing with his pistol. “Now tie both the ends around that stump there.”
Do not pass out. Do not lose control.
Stephen glanced at his mother and Caroline. They both nodded, so he knelt down and looped the rope twice around the fat, heavily rooted stump before securing it. It would take several close-range cannonballs to dislodge something like that from the ground.
“Anything else?” he said, still endeavoring to keep his voice even.
“Just one more thing,” replied Taff pleasantly, lifting his pistol.
Then he aimed.
And fired.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Westleigh was a hard nut to crack.
Even lying on the ground with a bullet in his shoulder, the screams of his wife and mother still echoing around them, the earl hadn’t made a sound. Instead, he sat up, a bored look on his face, removed a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it firmly to the bloodstained wound site like he was attending to a troublesome splash of brandy.
Taff ground his teeth. If that was the way the bastard wanted to play the game, so be it.
Tossing the used pistol over the cliff, he removed a fresh one from his jacket pocket and marched over to the dowager countess.
“Come along, my lady,” he said, clamping a hand around her arm and propelling her towards the cliff edge. “We’re going to test your son’s rope tying ability.”
She regarded him with a cool stare, managing to look down her nose at him even though he must be at least a foot taller. “I have no doubts regarding my son’s abilities. He has talents you’ve probably never even heard of. It’s only a matter of…ahhhhh!”
The dowager’s shriek was gratifyingly loud as she dropped, but the rope was only long enough for a several-foot descent before it tightened and jerked and she swung back into the cliff. Amused, he watched her grapple with the lifeline and attempt to get a foothold in the treacherously slippery rock.
How well he knew the futility of that particular exercise.
“It seems you did an admirable job for your mother, my lord,” Taff said, over his shoulder. “Although she is rather small. A far better test will be your wife. Come along, Lady Westleigh.”
Caroline Forsyth glared at him and spat on his boot. “No.”
“No?”
“Congratulations, Mr. Martin, you can comprehend basic English. That’s one skill at least.”
Taff chuckled. Then cocked his pistol and pointed it at her head. “I like your spirit, Lady Westleigh. Always have. But now is really not the time.”
“If you think I’m just going to-”
“Jump off a cliff? Yes, I think you will,” he said quietly, lowering his arm until the muzzle dug into her belly. “Unless you’d prefer I shoot you now? Right here? Tell me, my lady, have you done your duty yet? Or is it too soon to know? It would be particularly appropriate, would it not, if you were with child.”
Her face turned stark white and she sagged against him. Perfect. Or at least it might have been if the damned woman didn’t weigh h
alf a ton. Half-walking, half-dragging Caroline’s limp body to the cliff edge, he shoved her over. The rope creaked audibly but held, and like her mother in law she swung several times, except her inertness led to one wince-worthy connection with the rocks.
“Ouch,” he said, turning and walking back to where the earl sat hunched over on the ground. “Someone is going to have a bit of a headache when they come to. Now, how’s that shoulder, Westleigh?”
“Not too bad, thank you,” Westleigh replied impassively, his ashen, perspiration-coated face and a spreading bloodstain on his linen shirt and jacket sleeve making a complete lie of the words.
“Hmmm. It’s just that I wanted this experience to be truly authentic. So you understand what it feels like to only have the use of one arm in a critical situation.”
“If authenticity were the aim, why didn’t you use a dagger?”
“Because,” snorted Uncle Albert from where he stood a few feet away, “despite the lessons I gave him, Taff is like you and far more adept with a pistol. So a pistol it had to be.”
“Yes,” said Taff. “But that is by the by. Now comes the advanced level of the game. I like to call this version ‘who do you love more?’”
“Don’t think I know this one,” Westleigh replied, but his stormy expression spoke volumes.
“Quite simple really. Two women. Two ropes to be cut. One viable arm. Who do you save?”
~ * ~
Her husband had called her bold and brave and clever. The good news, Stephen was definitely in love with her even if he hadn’t yet said the words. The bad news, he was definitely in love with her because he couldn’t be more wrong.
Even with Sir Malcolm, she’d never known such mind-numbing terror in her life. The feeling only intensified as her gaze flew between three things: a thin, creaking rope, the only barrier stopping her from a deadly plunge to the rocky, churning ocean below. The unforgiving cliff face which already wore a chunk of blood-smeared skin from her temple. And Jane, weeping softly while she gripped her piece of rope, her heeled slippers scratching fruitlessly as she tried to gouge out a small hold. Yet closing her eyes didn’t help either. Much as she wanted to pretend this was all just a vivid nightmare, that she was actually in bed wrapped in Stephen’s arms, she had to face reality. If the rope snapped, she was a dead woman.
Caroline shuddered, her teeth chattering. The sun’s faint warmth had been replaced by clouds and a brisk breeze, yet perspiration still trickled down her neck and between her breasts, making them itch. Her hands were so clammy and trembling they kept slipping. The rope around her waist bit cruelly through her gown and into her flesh, yet there was no way to ease the pressure of her weight. Not to mention the debilitating fear. She’d already had two severe frights, the first when Taff shot Stephen and he slumped to the ground. Despite an oath to herself to remain calm, to not give the twisted creature any kind of satisfaction, a scream had torn from her throat. Seeing her husband lying motionless on the gravel path, blood spurting from a bullet wound, was a memory she wanted entirely erased from her mind. The second, when Taff shoved the pistol muzzle into her stomach and asked her if she was with child…
Because she just might be. Her courses usually plagued her at the start of each month, and twelve days later, still hadn’t arrived. Of course the delay might well be related to all the awful recent happenings, except her stomach had also been unsettled and her breasts unusually tender. She hadn’t breathed a word to Stephen, or anyone for that matter, just in case she was mistaken.
Oh please God, let us survive this.
Craning her neck, Caroline attempted to peer through the heavy grass, twisting vines and medium-sized rocks covering the top of the cliff. It was torture not knowing what the men were doing; maddeningly, the length of the rope meant she hung just low enough to only be able to catch sporadic glimpses of them. Was Stephen all right? She hadn’t heard another shot fired, or any sounds to indicate a fight, no matter how hard she strained her ears. Not necessarily a good thing.
If he were dead already.
“Caroline. Can you see anything?” muttered Jane, startling her enough she actually flinched and jerked on the rope, making it creak and moan.
Please, please don’t break.
“Not really,” she whispered back. “Stephen is still on the ground I think.”
“I’m going to kill that Mr. Martin. Once I get back on s-solid earth. I just wish I had something sharp.”
On another occasion she might have smiled at Jane’s tear-clogged yet fierce tone. It was hard to imagine her swatting a fly, let alone killing a man. Then again, under the circumstances…
“Can you reach me, Jane?”
Her mother in law flattened herself against the rock face, then inched a hand sideways. “Nearly. Wait. If I swing a little…”
“No! Don’t swing. The ropes will rub against each other. I don’t know how old they are, they might unravel at any time.”
“I’m fine. See? What do you have?”
Slowly, carefully, one hand gripping the rope, Caroline reached into her bodice and withdrew the first dagger hidden in her stays. “This.”
“Keep it for yourself.”
“I have others. Take the knife, Jane. Dig it into the rock.”
Holding her breath, she didn’t relax until Jane patiently worked the razor-sharp dagger halfway into the rock face. Thank God the surface was just soft enough to do so.
“Done.”
“Excellent. All right, come back and get this one,” Caroline replied, tugging out the second dagger and holding it out to her. “Slowly, slowly. That’s it.”
“Now what?”
She paused, mentally crossing her fingers and toes for luck. Then removed the knife from under her sleeve, tearing away the sheath with her teeth and burying it into the rock face. The one strapped to her thigh was far harder to access, but eventually, after several fervent prayers and some painstaking maneuvering, she also had two daggers in the rock above her head.
“Hold onto them no matter what, Jane. Inch them upwards to level ground if you can. If the rope breaks or if it is cut, they will at least give you a chance…oh hell, they’re walking this way. All three. Don’t let them see.”
“I won’t. Good luck, my darling.”
~ * ~
The burning, coiling agony in his shoulder was so bad he wanted to vomit. Or pass out. Every time the muscle flexed another gush of blood soaked his shirt, and he could practically feel bullet and bone grinding insistently against each other. But he couldn’t think about that now. Not when his wife and mother were both swinging from a cliff top, a deranged killer strutted in front of him and a battle-hardened soldier waited behind. Somehow one foggy brain, two syllabub legs and one trembling arm had to defeat two perfectly healthy men, each with cocked pistol in hand.
This is why you’ve never enjoyed gambling.
Bloody, great and nightmare were the only words to adequately describe the current situation, yet it did have one tiny positive. The two women were currently well out of the line of fire.
“You still haven’t answered Taff’s question, Westleigh. Who do you love more? Your mother or your wife?”
Stephen glanced backwards at Sir Albert as a wave of rage surged through his body, so unrelentingly powerful his shoulder agony dulled to a throbbing ache.
One chance. Right now.
Do it.
He laughed heartily, as if the baronet had just made a particularly amusing joke. Then in one fast, brutal movement, he pivoted and smashed his right fist into the older man’s face. Sir Albert dropped like a stone, blood gushing from a broken nose, and his pistol clattered onto the path. The impact was enough to discharge the bullet, but it caused no more damage than a deafening thunderclap and violent spray of gravel.
“Westleigh, you bastard, you’re ruining our plan!” screamed Taff, uncocking his pistol and throwing it onto the ground before grabbing Stephen’s injured shoulder, wrenching him around and landing a fierce blo
w on his chin. The combination felt like the stab of a thousand knives and Stephen’s legs buckled while his stomach roiled unmercifully. Yet seconds later the rage surged again and he kicked out a foot, hooking it around Taff’s knee. As Taff wobbled, he lowered his good shoulder and charged. They both tumbled onto the grassed verge and rolled back and forth, one on top then the other, their heads hanging over the cliff edge as they exchanged uncoordinated but fierce blows.
Finally, somehow, he managed to land a punch that left Taff reeling. Pinning him on the ground with one knee, he reached behind into his waistband for one of his pistols.
Only to drop it on the way back.
Blood pounded through his veins and the world around him faded. Numbly, his head swimming, he watched the weapon bounce on the verge, almost straight into Taff’s hand.
“Well, well. Looks like the fates are smiling on me today, Westleigh,” Taff said, gripping the pistol and lifting it until the muzzle rested in the center of Stephen’s chest. “Say goodbye. I’m going to put a bullet through your heart, just like I did Hallmere. Then I’m going to cut the ropes and watch those two blonde whores get smashed to pieces on the rocks. Today is definitely a gooaaaaahhhh…”
Stephen blinked. Why the hell had Taff screamed? When did the temperature plummet? How could his throbbing shoulder get so perfectly in sync with his heartbeat?
“Shoot him, darling. Now!”
At the sharpest tone he’d ever heard his mother use, the fog lifted and he saw Taff’s shoulder. Or rather the dagger half-protruding from Taff’s shoulder.
“Goddamned bitches!” Taff hissed, writhing in pain, his hold on the pistol visibly loosening. “I’m going to…kill you both…”
Stephen grabbed the weapon, using every bit of his remaining strength to turn the muzzle around so it instead pointed at Taff. With trembling hands he cocked it and squeezed the trigger. The explosion echoed loudly, so loud his ears rang and burning hot gunpowder flew into his face, stinging his eyes and mixing with his sweat.
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